Customers of the mobile financial service (MFS) providers are often becoming victims of deception as fraudsters have been using new tricks to swindle them out of their money from their  mobile banking accounts.

The fraudsters are not only targeted illiterate people who lack knowledge of the technology but also high officials of private and government organisation are also falling victims of the scams.

AHM Quamruzzaman, Deputy Director (DD) of Divisional Public Library, Chattogram, said: “In September this year, some fraudsters took away Tk 55,000 from my bKash account.”

According to Bangladesh Bank, 19 banks launched MFS services and 15 out of them are active and currently offering the services. But people mostly know about Nagad of Bangladesh Post Office, bKash of Brac Bank and Rocket of Dutch-Bangla Bank.

At this moment, bKash is the country’s largest mobile financial services provider. As the users of bKash are so high, they are often becoming victims of frauds and losing money to scams.

Recently, Detective Branch (DB) of Police detained three members of a fraud gang from Mohammadpur area in the capital.

The members of bKash fraud gang are mainly divided into four groups to operate the scams, said Md Abdul Ahad, Deputy Commissioner of Wari Division of the Detective Branch.

According to the statement of the arrestees, the first group visit bKash agent shops and take photos of logbooks that had phone numbers of clients. The photos are later sent to the second group through WhatsApp specifying the location.

The second group makes phone calls to bKash clients and uses various deceiving techniques to steal money from mobile banking accounts.

The trick is to say that your bKash account had been locked due to complaints about money sent from my shop to several numbers at the same time. You will be unlocked by calling from the bKash office.

After a short time, the third group makes phone calls and claim themselves as bKash customer care service officer and asks for the clients’ bKash PIN. After getting the PIN, the scammers wipe out the victim’s account.

AHM Quamruzzaman told the Daily Sun: “Another type of fraud gang has surfaced nowadays. They call various government officials by using the identity of their boss and asked for money though MFS as instant help.” He said “Director (Development & ICT) of Department of Public Libraries, Dhaka Md AJM Abdullahel Baki, called me and asked me to call Md Mahbub Hossain, secretary of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) on December 22. As someone called him (Abdullahel Baki) and told him to ask me to call the secretary.”

“Director Sir also text me a mobile number saying that this is the number of the secretary. Then I called the number from my official landline but no one received the call.”

“After sometimes, Director Sir called me again and said the secretary was desperately looking for me,” he added.

“Later, I called from my mobile number and someone received the call and said I am calling you back after 5 minutes.”

“After a few minutes, I received a call from the number. Identifying his as the secretary, he told me that his wife is now in Chattogram and her ATM card was not working. He gave me a bKash number and asked me to send Tk 12000 to that number.”

He said: “As I was little confused. I collected the number of the personal secretary (PS) of the secretary informed him about the matter. Hearing the information, he (PS) said this might be the work of a fraud gang.”

“In the evening, I came to know that this kind of incident also happened to other colleagues of mine on the same day,” he added.

“As fraudsters took away money from my bKash account a few months ago, I was aware in this time otherwise I might be the victim of the incident.”

Later, the Secretary filed a complaint with RAB headquarters in this regard.

Shamsuddin Haider Dalim, Head of Corporate Communications & PR of bKash Limited, told the Daily Sun: “Every day around 70 to 90 lakh transactions are made through bKash platform. Of those, only a handful of people become victims of fraud gang.”

“We request our customers to remain aware of this kind of fraudulent activities.”

He suggested: “Don’t share PIN and OTP to anyone. Do not dial any number or send money following anyone’s instruction when talking over the phone without verifying their identity.”

“None can take away money from your account if you don’t share PIN and OTP,” he said.

He said, “Check your account balance first, if in doubt, when anyone calls you asking to return the money they have sent mistakenly.”

He also said that “Now people are aware as we have continued out awareness campaign throughout the year.”